Lucky girls - Nell Freudenberger

A collection of five stories, Lucky Girls is set in India and southern Asia. The characters -- rootless, often en route to someplace else -- find themselves variously attracted to or repelled by unfamiliar landscapes where every object seems strange and every emotion is heightened. Living according to alien rules, these characters are also vulnerable in unexpected ways: in the title story, a young woman who has been involved in an affair with an Indian man feels bound to both her memories and her adopted country after his death; the protagonist of 'Outside the Eastern Gate' returns to her childhood home in Delhi to find a house still inhabited by the impulsive, desperate spirit of her mother.

'Together, these stories form a whole of heartbreaking eloquence, yet each different strand has the resonance of a far longer work . . . These surprising, generous stories signal the arrival of a born writer' Observer